Highmoor have a lotta Bottle!

Ellis Mason, one of the Bell & Bottle players who switched to Highmoor/Ibis Res

THIS time last year, Bell & Bottle were steam-rollering their way to the Reading Football League Division 4 title in their debut season.

Now, under the name of Highmoor/Ibis Res, they are challenging for honours on three fronts.

Manager Kevin Jefferies was disillusioned at the end of the 2007/08 campaign when Bell & Bottle clinched promotion – only to find that they would be playing virtually all the same sides as Division 4 was scrapped and every team moved up a division.

So he snapped up the chance to take over Highmoor’s struggling reserve team in the Premier Division.

The Bell folded, and all his players transferred to pit their skills in a much higher standard.

Now Highmoor are lying third in the league – still in with an outside chance of catching long-time leaders Frilsham – and in the last eight of two cups.

Jefferies said: “It was good fun last year. We scored over 100 goals in 17 games and the boys enjoyed it.

“This season all the games are a lot closer.

“We have largely the same side as we had last season. We only really added Shane Maskell from South Reading and he has done very well, while Charlie Higgs should make his debut for us this week.”

Jefferies added: “All we wanted to do this season was be competitive and retain our place in the Premier.

“To be in with a chance of finish in first or second place and still be in two cups is brilliant.”

Highmoor will face Barton Rovers in the quarter-finals of the Reading Evening Post Junior Cup.

But it is the BTC Intermediate Cup semi-final clash against arch rivals SRCC that has got Highmoor fired up.

Jefferies said: “We have got four or five players who used to play for SRCC and I have grown up with a lot of them.

“It should be really interesting and I know our strikers are looking forward to playing against Carl Blunden!”

Before then, though, Highmoor will turn their attention to closing down the top two of Frilsham and Unity.

They face second-placed Unity on Saturday, determined to avenge a 3-1 defeat on the opening day of the season.

Jefferies said: “We need to keep picking up the points because we are six points behind Frilsham and we still have to play them.

“They are a good side, but we beat them in pre-season and early in the season.

“The thing that could hamper us is midweek games.

“We have only lost three league games and two of them were Wednesday nights at the start of the season.

“We had to put out a makeshift team because of work commitments and we could struggle again if we get many midweek games at the end of the season.”